Laurence Payne | |
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| Born | Laurence Stanley Payne (1919-06-05)5 June 1919 London, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | 23 February 2009(2009-02-23) (aged 89) London, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation(s) | actor novelist |
| Years active | 1946–1992 |
| Spouse(s) | Judith Draper 1974–2009 (his death) Pamela Alan 1955–? (divorced) Sheila Burrell 1944–1951 (divorced) |
Laurence Stanley Payne (5 June 1919 – 23 February 2009) was anEnglish actor and novelist.[1][2]
Payne was born inLondon. His father died when he was three years old, and he and his elder brother and sister were brought up by their mother, aWesleyan Methodist inWood Green, London.[3] He attendedBelmont School andTottenham Grammar School, leaving at 16 to take a clerical job.[3] After training at theBristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1939, he was exempted from war service as aconscientious objector on condition that he went on tour with the Old Vic during thewar.[4]
Payne made his professional debut at theOld Vic theatre in 1939 and remained with the company for several years.[5] He then performed at theChanticleer and Arts theatres in London, also directing and broadcasting for the first times during this period.[3] AtStratford-on-Avon he played, among other parts,Romeo inPeter Brook's 1947 production.[6]
After more work at London theatres, he played leading roles at the prestigiousBristol Old Vic, and after that rejoined the London Old Vic company.[7] At theEmbassy Theatre in London he playedHamlet.[4]
His film credits include:The Trollenberg Terror (aka.The Crawling Eye),Vampire Circus,The Tell-Tale Heart andBen-Hur.[8] Histelevision credits include:Z-Cars,Moonstrike,Thriller (1 episode, 1974),The Sandbaggers,Airline,Telephone Soup,The Saint (1966) - Episode (S5,E6) andTales of the Unexpected.[9][1] See him also as Capulet in a 1976 version of Romeo and Juliet.[10]
He appears in threeDoctor Who serials:The Gunfighters,The Leisure Hive andThe Two Doctors, playing a different role in each.[11] Perhaps his most famous role was as TV'sSexton Blake (1968–71) on ITV in Britain.[5] It was while filming an episode ofSexton Blake that he lost sight in his left eye during rehearsal of a sword fighting scene with actorBasil Henson, following a hard sword blow against the side of his head.[3]Peter Moffatt took him straight away toMoorfields Eye Hospital, and Payne was told that, if he could lie still for a week without moving his head, his retina would join up again so preserving his sight. Instead of doing this, Payne went back to work, got hit in a fistfight, and so lost his sight in that eye.[citation needed]
After retiring from acting, Payne continued to concentrate on writing crime/detective novels. His 1961 novelThe Nose on my Face was filmed asGirl in the Headlines (1963).[2] By 1993, he had published 11 novels,[12] and he has been called "one of the great humorists of the world of crime fiction".[13]
Payne was an enthusiastic oil painter, a self-taught pianist, and a fight director. In later years he worked regularly on radio, but in the 1990s he developedsepsis and there was subsequent brain damage. Suffering from vascular dementia, he spent the last three years of his life in a nursing home near Berwick-upon-Tweed.[14] He was married twice.
Sam Birkett series
John Tibett series
Mark Savage series
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